Frequency of surgical wound infection in operated patients at Golpayegani Hospital in Qom (2008-2009)

Background: Nosocomial infection is an infection that neither is presented or in incubation period at time of admission. This complication increases the hospital stay, cost, and mortality. Surgical wound infection (SWI) is a major nosocomial infection. Objective: The study was performed to determine the frequency of SWI, causative agents, and underlying diseases in operated patients. Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study carried out on operated patients by general surgeons at Golpayegani Hospital in Qom (Iran) during 2008-2009. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using t-test and chi square test. Findings: Totally, 3400 patients were operated within this period. The mean age was 55±2 years and 53% were female. The most common operations were cholecystectomy (36.4%), appendectomy (29%), gastric surgery (13.4%), herniorrhaphy (9.3%), and intestinal surgery (6%). Of total patients operated, 2.9% developed SWI. The mean age among those was 58±2 years and 53% were female with no significant difference between the SWI cases and the total number of patients regarding the age and sex. The frequency of infection was higher in gastric, intestinal, and cholecystectomy surgeries than appendectomy and herniorrhaphy and the difference was found to be significant (P<0.01) indicating that the SWI was more common in gastric, intestinal, and gallbladder surgeries. The most common underlying diseases were diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in both total patients and the SWI patients with no significant difference between two. The commonest agent was Staphylococcus aureus (32%) and pseudomonas (20.5%). Conclusion: Frequency of SWI was at expected limit indicating that it was not abnormally high or low. Although the predominant organism was different from that reported in some studies however, this could be the value of this study as each medical center should be aware of its own indices including its local specific organisms which may be different from those in other hospitals.